


aerial view -

by alvaughn



Category: Bandom, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, anyways basically its heavily focused on josh, i think i dont even really know what that tag means, ok theres like a lot of oc mentions bc im lazy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 20:51:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4320231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alvaughn/pseuds/alvaughn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"not everyone's as lucky as us," tyler mutters into his neck one night as his fingertips bruise the skin of his hips.</p>
            </blockquote>





	aerial view -

**Author's Note:**

> yo! ok this fic was roughly inspired by a quote, "from 18 to 22, you meet a lot of temporary people," so basically i just wrote josh stuff from 18-28. since i'm a lazy asshole almost everyone pre-tyler (and pre-debby) is an original character who doesn't really matter in the end. they're just here to further the story in their own way. also i wrote this at like 6 am (bc that's when inspiration strikes it seems) so. good luck, i guess.
> 
> title from the beers by the front bottoms.

**one.**

 

the night before his eighteenth birthday, he meets a girl who calls herself aubrey. her hair is cotton candy blue, and when he remarks that he'd love to have a shade like that in his hair, she rolls her eyes and mutters ' _gay_ ' like it's a sinful word, which looking back upon it now, she must've thought that it probably was.

she kisses him when the grandfather clock in his best friend's living room chimes midnight.

(it's more or less the worst year of his life.)

 

**two.**

 

a guy named craig snakes himself into his life. he's tall but thin and wears glasses that take up half of his face. craig says he's beautiful in his own way, and he wants to laugh because he's knows that he's beautiful in every way and that craig is just being an ass, trying to make him feel special.

the sad part is that it works.

 

**three.**

 

along with craig comes a girl named bree, and somehow between the three weeks the know each other, the two of them have him pinned to the tacky bedspread and are tearing him apart until he's nothing but the blood rushing through his veins and the erratic pulse that's deafening as it pounds in his ears.

they tell him that he's pretty. they tell him that no matter what, he's always enough - if not for anyone else, he's enough for them. craig kisses him as bree sucks him down with hollowed cheeks and heavily stained pink lips.

they don't call him again after the fact, and he doesn't mind one bit.

 

**four.**

 

he doesn't remember the next guy's name. he vaguely thinks it has something to do with an f - maybe frank or fred or something dumb like that. they have a fling that lasts a weekend - he leaves the bed in frank or fred or _whoever's_ apartment a few times, and that's to piss or grab a snack.

it's not really an enjoyable thing - the guy has no idea what he's doing, so by the time sunday night rolls around he makes up some vague excuse about having classes in the morning and leaves without saying goodbye.

 

**five.**

 

the next girl has lips as red as cherries and eyes as deep as sin, and she drags him into a bathroom at a club he's managed to get in and fucks him until he can't remember his own name.

they make some kind of bond, he thinks, or she just keeps his number around because he doesn't shake her for a year after their first meeting.

her name is sarah, and to this day, he remembers the feeling of her fingers against his wrists.

 

**six.**

 

he meets a girl named grace that tells him that his drumming reminds her of her now deceased brother, and he spends the night letting her cry into his shoulder.

it's obvious she's got some shit to work through.

 

**seven.**

 

a guy named luke tells him he has pretty lips, and they kiss once but he decides to go no further because luke has a nice car and an amazing house with a pool and a makeshift basketball court and too many friends that look at him like he's a piece of meat.

(it's not that luke doesn't try - he chases him until his twenty first birthday until he finally says _enough fucks sake if i didn't fuck you then i won't fuck you now_ )

(he leaves the bar that night with a black eye)

 

**eight.**

 

the nineteenth year of his life brings in someone who refuses to identify one way or another.

they have shaggy hair and deep blue lipstick and a button on their backpack that says _'gender is for squares'_.

he likes them, but it's not enough to keep them in ohio.

 

**nine.**

 

his nineteenth year also brings a girl named katelynn who likes indie punk bands and drags him to garage shows and tries to make him jealous as she grinds up against other guys who want her more than he's ever wanted her.

they date for six months, and it's probably the worst experience of his life.

they only break up when she cries and tells him that _what the fuck is he a fucking queer why didn't he care more?_

he says _yes_ and she leaves and doesn't say goodbye.

 

**ten.**

 

twenty comes up too fast.

his father tells him he's getting old and needs to start looking for a new place because it won't be too much longer until he's not able to stay with them anymore. his mother curses his father and cries when he tells her that he's been looking, and it won't be too much longer.

the night of his twentieth birthday he meets someone named hannah and she buys him a drink out of pity.

he never speaks to her again, but during the twenty sixth year of his life he thinks he sees her at a hometown show and it's enough to get him by.

 

**eleven.**

 

he meets a guy named travis who drives a taxicab and wears too much white and hates his wife.

for some reason, he pities the man and they become friends. not _friends_ , acquaintances.

they never sleep together, but by the time travis moves out of the area, he feels like they have enough shared baggage that they could've been married for the past ten years and he didn’t even know it.

 

**twelve.**

 

zoey is pretty and taller than him and her hair is a dirty blonde and she hates her parents and she works at a salon. she helps him dye his hair for the first time and fucks him after they dry it out.

as he pays, she tells him that if he wants to make another appointment to make it with amanda because it's her last day there.

he shrugs. that’s their last interaction.  

 

**thirteen.**

 

winnie is funny. that's what initially draws him in because there's nothing really stand out about her - she has brown eyes that match her brown hair and she's an average height and she doesn't wear stand out clothes but she tells jokes to an almost empty bar and has talent that could carry her somewhere.

they don't sleep together, but they drink whiskey that she buys him and they see the last movie showing for the night at the theater down the street. he doesn’t tell her when she moves out of town, but it kept him going.

it seems so for her too because she ends up on television not three years later.

 

**fourteen.**

 

twenty one brings him a black eye from luke and a call from bree.

he's forced to take one home with him, and it's not her.

 

**fifteen.**

 

kassidy tells him that he has a knack for drumming and that maybe she can hook him up with one of her boyfriend's friends that's looking for a new drummer in his band because the other is thinking about leaving.

they kiss once but it's just because he's so excited and they promise not to tell her boyfriend.

 

**sixteen.**

 

jeanette has a cool tattoo and an eyebrow piercing and she tells him that he'd look awesome with tattoos too, that he could totally rock the bad boy look if he so wanted.

he goes home and dyes his hair green and then she says _maybe not so much._

he likes disappointing people.

 

**seventeen.**

 

he kisses kathleen behind a bar and then goes back to her place to beat the shit out of her boyfriend when he finds bruises on her thighs that aren't from hickies or fingerprints.

she sends him a postcard three months later from seattle, telling him that she's doing okay and that there's nothing to worry about on her end of things anymore.

 

**eighteen.**

 

he becomes mutual friends with kassidy's boyfriend and he ends up crashing on their couch a few nights a week when he isn't working late and his parents don't mind his presence as he still hunts for a new apartment.

the guy is loud yet bright and he smiles like he knows your secrets but won't tell anyone. he thinks it should make him uncomfortable but it's slightly endearing.

 

**nineteen.**

 

he turns twenty two and moves into a small house with some guy named mark.

kassidy throws him a birthday party that drags far into the night.

he never does meet that other guy looking for a drummer even though she tells him that he did show up.

"maybe next time," she shrugs.

maybe next time.

 

**twenty.**

 

he's getting by at a small record shop, and he doesn't meet anyone who's new to him and worth a damn for a long period of time.

twenty two is probably going to be the most boring year of his life.

 

**twenty one.**

 

three nights later he fucks some girl with a british accent and blue green eyes and she says her boyfriend's name when she comes.

she apologizes but he shrugs and says "i can see how josh and edgar sound alike".

he can't. she smiles anyways.

 

**twenty two.**

 

he meets a girl named debby who’s from l.a. and says she’s visiting her girlfriend.

they don’t have sex, but she kisses him once on the mouth - because apparently that’s the kind of relationship she has with her girlfriend, an open one more or less - and they get high together with mark on the back patio.

when she leaves town, he has a new contact in his phone and a best friend for life.

 

**twenty three.**

 

he's drinking a lukewarm beer and mark has some friends over when he meets him. he crowds the opposite side of the couch and his eyes are dark and his arms are thin and his body is perfect from his long hair to his tattoos.

they talk about music and girls and boys and how the industry is changing in front of their eyes. he tells him how he plays the drums and he says that it's interesting because he's looking for a drummer and that kassidy said she was going to introduce him to someone but they never got a chance. he says that's more interesting because he's that guy and now they're finally getting that chance.

"i'm tyler," perfect guy says.

"i'm josh," he replies.

it goes well.

 

**twenty four.**

 

their band goes well. in the end it's the two of them and the sounds they make are ones that are going to be heard around the world until the end of time, most likely. at least, that's what pete wentz says.

and yes, he's met pete wentz.

 

**twenty five.**

 

life is a mess in the best way possible between twenty two and twenty five.

their band takes off, and they get signed, and he goes around the world and meets a million new people and remembers none of their names, they play dozens of festivals and shows and they make enough memories to last him four lifetimes.

the only reason it starts making sense at twenty five is because tyler pulls him off stage one night and laces his fingers in his now blue hair and tells him that he loves him so much before their lips are pressed firmly together.

don't put it past him to realize that he's lost that feeling of home over the years, and that's he's been desperately yearning to get it back because he needs some place to go back to at the end of the day. needs somewhere to plant his feet down and say _this is it_.

when tyler kisses him, it feels like coming home - as fucking cliché as it is. when tyler kisses him, he realizes that home ceased to be a place but instead a person. home turned out to be the person he poured his heart and soul and mind into.

"i fucking love you," he says when tyler pulls away from him to stare at him, to breathe him in.

tyler smiles and kisses him again.

 

**twenty six.**

 

they fall in love and it's enough, because it always has been.

"not everyone's as lucky as us," tyler mutters into his neck one night as his fingertips bruise the skin of his hips.

"i know," he says, and he does. he does know. not everyone gets to fuck up and fuck half of columbus only to have the guy of their dreams knock on their door and give them the opportunity of a lifetime and get the chance to fall in love with him too while they're at it.

 

**twenty seven.**

 

they get married four days before his twenty eighth birthday.

as tyler kisses him, he thinks that maybe every temporary person that had come in and out of his life leading up to that moment was a stone that was skipped in order to get his attention.

and fuck him if he isn't the happiest guy in the world because he paid attention.

 

**Author's Note:**

> yikes @ this story, but anyways, hope you enjoyed. i don't know why i keep writing them as married to each other by the end but i'm not complaining. 
> 
> maybe i'll have actual content at some point. cheers!


End file.
